National Vampire & Other Great Vampire Documentaries

At some point, we’re going to have to start looking for a way to talk to the people behind Nation Vampire: A Documentary, –the trailer looks great. The film basically explores vampire culture in the United States, –not just real vampires, but vampire fetishes, blood sports, bloodletting and drinking, vampire roleplay, and even the people behind the making of custom fangs. It looks great, so we’ll see if we can’t get a hold of a copy to review. Here’s the  official synopsis:

“National Vampire is a feature-length documentary that explores vampire culture in the United States. To achieve this, the filmmakers spent more than two years traveling around the country, attending vampire-related events, and interviewing dozens of people involved in the vampire community. Shooting locations include a Vampire’s Ball held in New Orleans each Halloween, a vampire tour of San Francisco, and a New York City shop that “transforms” people into vampires. Also featured are a vampire “dentist” who makes fangs for a living, vampire role playing gamers in Dayton, Ohio, a vampire-themed magician, and a bloodthirsty Texas couple that claims to be the real thing. Going beyond the surface, National Vampire also explores a number of subcultures that overlap the vampire community, including the goth music scene, bondage and S&M, and blood fetishists who take part in piercing and full-body suspension rituals. Guiding the way are noted vampire researcher Dr. Katherine Ramsland and “vampirologist” Martin Riccardo, eccentric founder of the Vampire Studies Center. The result is a colorful documentary filled with wonderful characters and eye-popping visuals that are bound to give you nightmares for weeks. Beware: National Vampire is a documentary with bite.”

Sounds awesome! We’ve also looked around a bit more, and tried to find some other great documentaries, for vampire fans who want to do  a little more research on the various different channels within the vampire subculture both nationally, and internationally. These are what we found:

Animal Planet’s Lost Tapes: Vampire – The name sounds really confusing, –Lost Tapes is a show on Animal Planet. They investigate the existence of hidden and paranormal creatures on earth. The first 60 minute episode of Lost Tapes covered vampires. You can find the DVD on Amazon, –they cover a lot of other awesome critters too.

Anne Rice: Birth of a Vampire – This is an old, but classic documentary from 1994, focused on Anne Rice, her life in New Orleans, and her books, –she reads excerpts from her novels.

Vampire Secrets – A popular History Channel documentary, made in 2006, that, aside from one segment on Elizabeth Bathory, is mostly historically accurate. As always with documentaries, watch out for embellishments.

Vampires: Why They Bite – This short documentary was aired this year on BBC; although it strives to inform on both history and modern pop culture, –it really misses the mark. However, it’s great for the novice vampire researcher, and very entertaining for fans of of vampire entertainment.